Archives for 2019

Yesterday was an Apple event that was fairly in my opinion. But many of the rumors are now official and one of those will impact our follow up processes.

If a caller is not recognized in someone’s contacts then that caller will go straight to voicemail.

That is an option iOS13 will have available to iPhone users. And I can only imagine it will be WIDELY used! It will be one of the first things I turn on. Android will probably follow that feature quickly. Who doesn’t want to block nearly 100% of calls where less than 2% are actually worth taking and those calls can be returned.

Robocall bastards

Soooooo…. it is time to hone the voicemail skills and lower the expectations on outbound phone calls. What else?

I never would have thought that any valuable internet sales training information would result from a Will Ferrell movie, but here we are. Reese Bobby got it right when he mused that being FIRST is all that matters. Especially when we’re trying to convince skeptical car shoppers to part with forty grand for a hunk of metal with no voice-on-voice action.

The FIRST dealer to give a FIRST quality response wins the race. Sadly, it’s more typical to find dealers saving the good stuff until too late in the conversation.

Over the last twenty years, we’ve witnessed a steady and steep decline in automotive internet lead close rates. Today, dealers are reporting an abysmal average of five percent conversion of leads to sales. You are dropping the ball with your internet lead responses. Dropping it, tripping over it, kicking it under the bleachers, and deflating it.

I have a very important question to ask you.

Are you sending a FQR or a FQR? Sure, they look the same but one wins the business and the other is the grown up equivalent of shitting the bed.

Let me break it down for you. You must start sending a FQR, First Quality Response. What you’re probably sending today is a FQR, Fifth Quality Response. On average, dealers are making it all the way until the FIFTH FRIKIN PASS to send customers anything of value. It’s truly dumbfounding.

Customers submit a lead and get back all sorts of ridiculous drivel like:

The prospect of the automotive business development center is
appealing, with the promise of an appointment generation machine that will
supercharge your sales floor. That said, building and sustaining a successful
BDC is a difficult process for every car dealership. The processes that need to
be implemented and the staff that need to be hired present unique problems that
dealers have to overcome.

My own experience has been meandering. When I first hired my first BDC rep, I had no idea what I was doing, as I had very little guidance on what to look for. Luckily my first hire turned out to be a superstar, but that was just a roll of the dice. As I scaled the BDC to three members, I started to face new difficulties, and at the same time, I found very few resources available to learn from others.

That’s why I started Car Sales Story, to provide a home for automotive training, with an initial focus on automotive BDC training. Recently I’ve expanded into providing online courses, with my first one being “Mastering Your Lease Portfolio.”

Now, in the last 14 months that I’ve built that site, I’ve
faced a deluge of the same questions over and over again. This article is
designed to address those common questions, as addressed in the recent Refresh Friday.

Question #1: How Should BDC Reps Handle Out-of-State Leads

Out-of-State leads are fantastic opportunities to make
profitable car deals. That said, there is generally not an opportunity to set
an appointment. Since I recommend paying BDC reps both on appointments set and
cars sold, this should not be a problem! The BDC rep should contact the
out-of-state lead, discover the needs, and present the opportunity to a sales
manager. If the customer becomes a deal, then the BDC representative should be
paid on the sale.

Gender: we all know it’s a hot topic in automotive. Whether it’s how to sell to the millennial woman or to the classic emotional male buyer, we’re constantly analyzing the difference between male and female shopping patterns. We’re dissecting how to market to them, negotiate with them, and then retain them as loyal customers.

As part of our quarterly market research, we also were interested in this topic. How does gender affect car buying behaviors on and offline? What kinds of models are women more likely to convert on? What about men? While compiling millions of data points and conversion sets from online footprint, we also asked our dealer clients what they think of the following questions to get some showroom insight:

1. Are millennial women buying differently than women historically? What about millennial men?

2. Do salespeople prefer to negotiate with women or men in the showroom?

3. Do women have a preference for the salesperson’s gender?

While some of the answers were slightly different, there were common themes in the answers.

Are millennial women buying differently than women historically? What about millennial men?

While men are simple and passive buyers, the number of millennial men buying cars is decreasing. So while there is not much change in the buying patterns, there is an effect on volume.

Women millennials are apparently completely different from women historically. Firstly, millennial women come more educated and shop only after research. And while they used to come to the showroom with their fathers, husbands, or boyfriends, now they are coming more often with their mothers. An interesting switch. One of our clients emphasized that millennial women are almost never coming in alone and are not confident enough in making the purchase alone. And, while millennial women may be more educated than the traditional woman buyer historically, they are not as confident in negotiating. Historically, women were more price savvy and were better negotiators than their counterparts.

Do salespeople prefer to negotiate with women or men in the showroom?

For the most part, salespeople don’t care who they negotiate with- they just want to sign a deal and sell the car. However, we did have some clients mention that salesmen would rather negotiate with other men since they don’t necessarily know the right approach with women. We’re certain this is more common than what was shared with us in this survey.

Do women have a preference for the salesperson’s gender?

Most women prefer to work directly with the women salesperson and would rather wait for the saleswoman to free up from working with a different client. This is particularly interesting considering that we had multiple clients mention that women will even wait up to two or three hours to work directly with other women.

While the anecdotal data is intriguing, it became the basis of a bigger report with statistical significance: Gender Distribution in the Auto Industry. Feel free to download the report here to get more information.

Not the best way to awaken my inactive forum account. But I thought I’d be the first one to report it here. Seems some digital vendors are not prepared for it, which could disrupt your advertisements and the successfulness of them.

Or much worse, put you in non-compliance, resulting in moderation of advertisements or ultimately a permanently banned ad account.

Short TLDR; (Too Long Didn’t Read) Summary:

“HUD charged facebook, claiming that Facebook violated the 1968 Fair Housing Act by allowing advertisers that use the platform to target and exclude individuals based on protected categories such as religion, color, gender, age, etc.”

This change will prohibit dealers from promoting auto loan opportunities to people that are a specific gender and age. Certain targeting options, which may include demographics, behaviors or interests group, will be unavailable as well. Look-a-like audiences will be removed completely – this is what advanced Facebook Marketers use to achieve low-cost & sustainable results through the Facebook Platform, which creates a new challenge for dealerships trying to market themselves.

So first off, who am I?

Names John, I’m from Chicago. I own & operate a digital agency which manages a fairly large ad budget across a multitude of dealers nationwide, ranging from Used/New & Used/BHPH.. you name it.

Shameless plugs…

If you’re looking to learn how to run Facebook Ads for your dealership check out my tutorial here:

A few weeks ago a few clients of mine received a message in their Facebook Ads Manager, notifying each of them about a silent update Facebook made regarding advertisements related to Credit, Housing, and Employment. Stating that if you were running advertisements in these categories, you MUST navigate to campaign level and adjust each campaign individually, submitting to its respective category.

So why is this bad news?

Although this isn’t the end of the world, it truly levels out the playing field. Nearly negating the thousands of dollars in ad spend dealers have paid to attain data, and some level of sustainability & optimization in their advertisement campaigns for selling cars.

1: You will no longer be able to target people by Age.
2: You won’t be able to target certain Genders.
3: Extreme limitations on behavior groups you can target.
4: Some limitations on interest groups as well.
5: Can no longer create look-a-like audiences, to target people similar to leads/buyers.
6: Can no longer target people in less than a 15 mile radius.
7: Cannot target or exclude individuals based on zip code.

Biggest kick in the groin being no more look-a-like audiences.

This is something advanced media buyers in the automotive space use to target car buyers more predictably. Without it, settling into optimization requires more ad budget and more time.

What can I do to stay ahead?

Again, not the end of the world. Facebook quickly announced a remedy to their removal of look-a-like audiences for those promoting ads in one of the now three moderated categories. (Credit, Housing, Employment)

It’s called a “Special Ad Audience”. (whoever came up with the name is a snowflake)

Although the details aren’t clear as to how different Special Ad Audiences are from Look-A-Like audiences, results are showing significantly less performance across the board.

Time will tell!

This thread will be updated with results and performance, as more of our advertisements are forced to move into this new “special” ad category.

Is there anything better than going to Las Vegas in mid-August? Perhaps some roofing work in southern Texas? Or maybe an asphalt job through Death Valley? Ok, we get it, it’s HOT in Las Vegas in August – and Digital Dealer 27 was hot as well!

Early arrival in Las Vegas – no line for a taxi 🙂

The direct flight from Cincinnati to Las Vegas was moved to an earlier slot, meaning we arrived in Vegas at 7 am. PERFECT time to make an early check-in to Mandalay Bay because, let’s face it, “people-watching” is one of the most underrated benefits of Las Vegas. We are walking in with our baggage and smiling faces, while we see others: A) Crestfallen after losing all of their money. B) The WolfPack is returning with their tails between their legs. C) The “Walk of Shame”, no further comments needed. Great news – Mandalay gave us an early check-in, and we spent Sunday relaxing, hitting the spa, and catching up with great friends that were also arriving during the day.

Do I look debonnaire with my new drink, the “Modern Old Fashioned”?

I picked up my registration on Sunday afternoon and wow – quite a walk to the convention center (about 15″-20″), reminded me of Digital Dealer at MGM Grand. Glad I picked up my badge on Sunday as I gave myself some extra time on Monday morning to walk over. There was a line for badge pickup, but lots of people were working the desk and badge pickup was moving along quickly.

Long time no see – Kendall Billman looking sharp in exhibit hall

And the First Shall be Last… Well, that Bible verse doesn’t bode well for me as I get to speak in the first session time-slot at Digital Dealer to give me time for this beloved recap. I was sincerely excited to share my presentation “Can You Handle the Truth: Unlock the Secrets Inside Your Modern Shopper’s Mind”, where I featured the results of a consumer experience study that we completed with a mix of consumers, whom we interviewed in our Wyler in-house studio.

There was a pet convention next to Digital Dealer 27 this year – loved seeing all the dogs

These questions asked the modern consumer where they consumed their media, how they preferred to communicate, whether they wanted a digital retailing experience, and more. The results? Not only insightful, but POWERFUL in allowing me to show dealers how to cut their CRM workloads in half while selling the same, if not more cars, saving marketing spend, and doubling if not quadrupling their website conversion. Would you like to know how?

Brent Wees, Arnold Tijerina, and Adam Ross, trio of talent!

Hands-down – consumers prefer to text. Yet we setup our websites for forms and phone calls, and our CRM task lists are stacked with phone calls. By taking our form submissions and adding a disclaimer to opt-in for text, we were able to get the opt-ins for text that we needed. Further, I shared that most third party sites and many OEM sites that send you leads have ALREADY disclaimed an initial opt-in for you as a dealer. That means you can TEXT these people. Our contact rate has jumped significantly as a result, and our sales reps are thrilled. Why?

Gayle Rogers and Tim Mueller (how does Tim get so tan working with Google? Google it…)

I can look at any dealership CRM tool and I will find a ton of overdue tasks, most of which are phone calls. One of the consumer questions we asked was “when do you answer a phone call?” Answer: if you are not in their contact list, or they are not expecting your call, they DON’T answer. In fact, they don’t even listen to your voicemail, they read the transcription. Which is essentially a glorified text. Dealers are asking their teams or BDCs to make hundreds of phone calls per day, with 90% going into voicemail. We are creating non-consumer facing “busy work” that aggravates our customers while frustrating our sales reps.

Always great to see my GREAT and brilliant friend Alex Jefferson

Consumer-facing solution: cut those phone tasks in half! Focus on text. Become more consumer-facing. Contact more prospects. Reduce dealership workload. Sell more cars. Happier customers and happier sales reps. And perhaps time to reconsider the exorbitant cost of a BDC that makes hundreds of outbound calls each day, only to go into voicemail. Rant over.

Nick Cybela, Alex Jefferson, and I at the Cox booth in exhibit hall

What about digital retailing? We found that people want a digital retailing tool almost unanimously if it helps them to complete some or most of the car buying process online. HOWEVER, our follow up question found that almost none of them wanted to buy a car 100% online. They still want to come in and test drive and visit the dealership.

I have GREAT NEWS. Dealers have an incredibly important role in the future with digital retailing. We still get to build value with the test drive. We still get to present the full F&I menu. And now, in addition, we get to build value with CONVENIENCE which is sold at a premium, meaning we can build profitability in a declining margins market. Bottom line – if you are not offering digital retailing, you are not consumer-facing.

Brent Wees and Bill Playford host a great interactive session with ACTIONABLE items

Whew! I hope I inspired many of you as I worked to do during my session. Now it was time to rush over and practice for Tech Tank later that day, and then go to Exhibit Hall.

Sean Squared! (Sean Stapleton and Sean Bradley)

First item on the agenda was to work with current partners with pressing issues. I met with Cloud One, KBB, Cox Automotive, Activengage, and many more. It is super convenient to walk to Activengage, find out my integration with DealerTrack Accelerate is being held up at Cox, then walk over to Cox and work to resolve that, etc. It was also a great opportunity to get together in person with some of the key decision makers at Activengage as I shared my vision of having our websites “serve” the consumers needs immediately rather than “chasing” them later.

Alright alright alright… The first keynote, “How Human-Centric Brands Win in a Tech-Dominated World” with Stefan Olander, Former VP at Nike, was well received. Was that because he looked like Matthew McConaughey? I liked Stefan’s analogy about having an open mind and not being afraid to test. Remember that eye chart when you went to the optometrist? They kept asking “better or worse?” Ask that same question across all of your processes and sharpen your vision (see that pun???).

Michelle Denogean with Roadster and Mike McFall with 360Converge lead a great session “Digital Retailing and the Impact on Your Dealership’s CRM”. I think we have all seen that graph where, after 90 minutes in the showroom, customer satisfaction begins to decline. Digital Retailing, if executed successfully in the showroom, can fix that problem. Michelle also shared that we must treat digital retailing leads differently. Our consumers use digital retailing as they want to feel empowered – is your process working those leads setup to empower them? Or just push tasks on them?

Joining Tamela Bauer and Greg Noonan at the Skyfall Lounge

Rock and Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution. Ok, problem here. If you were in keynote hall, it was distracting to hear the presentation next door at the Food and Beverage Hall. And while I was in the F&B hall for the previous presentation, I struggled to focus as I could hear the presentation in Keynote Hall. Um, they were only separated by a curtain. And further, they were cleaning up after lunch with some kind of locomotive pulling multiple carts of clanging dishes and silverware. Or maybe I am just getting old and cranky and am losing my hearing 🙂

Great to see David Boice, Dean Evans, and Andrew Diffenderfer

Next up was “Think with Google: #NoMoreCoreModels”, with David Boice from Team Velocity and Andrew Diffenderfer with Google. I meant “The Google” – that always builds immediate credibility with your friends and business associates when you call it “The Google”, at least that is what my good Google friend Julio Gonzalez told me. We learned the latest news from Google about our consumers, and another reminder to ensure you have your store visits setup in Google Analytics.

Julio Gonzalez with “The Google”

It’s just another manic Monday… Heads up, there was some chaos on Monday at Digital Dealer. Unfortunately, some speakers had to cancel sessions due to unforeseen reasons (accident, family emergency, etc) and this happened after the session books were printed. God bless Alissa Calvaruso with Digital Dealer who was literally updating the schedule boards with handwriting while moving things around as best she could. The Digital Dealer app showed updated info regarding sessions BUT I had multiple people tell me that they could not find the app.

THANK YOU Alissa Calvaruso for all of your hard work, you are GREAT!

Hopefully a simple fix, have the app searchable from your app as “Digital Dealer” rather than “Emerald Expositions”. I know that DD sent out a direct link, but it comes down to “consumer-facing” and most folks were searching directly for “Digital Dealer” and not finding the app.

“Shark” Kris Nielson keeping folks on their toes at the Tech Tank

This shark can swim fast! Not much of a break for me as I then rushed over to sit on the Tech Tank panel. I think having one Tech Tank session is plenty, and as always, it was a highly organized tech tank ran by our brilliant and beautiful moderator Eliana Raggio. My favorite part was when one of the presenters moved Eliana away from her podium and decided to present from there. BRAVE man, lol. My personal favorite was RevGen, a new geo-fencing solution that uses some cutting edge technology – check it out.

A well I bless my soul, what’s wrong with me?, I’m itching like a man on a fuzzy tree… Wow, the day is not nearly over and it is time for a cocktail. How about an “Elvis Presley?” Also known as a Red Bull and Vodka, one taking you up and other taking you down. Maybe that drink should be called “Confusion”. Time to start working the hall and greeting the awesome folks of automotive.

Vodka martini – dirty. Cheers friends!

Quick shower, throw on some cologne (Brut by Faberge, if you are curious) and time for our Wyler team dinner at Rivea, on the top floor of Delano. Fantastic view of Vegas, both from the restaurant and their adjoining bar. This was not only a great time to network within our team, but also to reward everyone for their hard work – thank you Jeff Wyler.

Great time with the Jeff Wyler Automotive Family team dinner at Rivea

You might remember from my Orlando recap that we went to a virtual reality experience. This time we took most of our Wyler team as well as my main man, soul brotha Alex Jefferson, to enjoy the Virtual Reality experience at the MGM Grand. Absolutely hysterical and an incredibly great time. Between my wife Julie and our team member Jenny howling over the headsets as they shot zombies, I think I was nearly deaf afterwards. Thank you Nick Cybela with FlowFound for setting this up (our industry’s resident virtual reality expert). Day one – over. (and heads-up, if you are going to NADA in Vegas next year, this is a great event to setup!)

If you want a GREAT team-building event, Virtual Reality is a hit

Wake up, you sleepy head, and get your hiney out of bed… An early start for Tuesday. Headed over for a great breakfast (thank you Digital Dealer, the food has really improved across the last shows, well done). Always fun to sit down at an empty table, and within about 15 minutes I am surrounded by friends and strangers who are soon to be friends. Katie Richter with Cuneo Advertising sat down with me and started sharing some invaluable insight about OTT and traditional marketing with one of my team members, and even offering to host him on a future visit to learn more about their cutting edge, successful tactics. This is what I love about Digital Dealer, the networking. We remain ahead of the curve by helping others, and receiving help in return. And btw – Katie is one of the smartest minds in automotive, thank you for your help 🙂

Typical table loaded with talent at Digital Dealer

One of the things I encouraged dealers to learn more about was OTT (over the top) television. With so many young people who never subscribe to cable or satellite (remember when that was the first thing you called about when you got an apartment or house?), and with older people “cutting the cord” in droves, how do you reach those people? I attended “CTV, OTT… WTF?” and simply put, OTT is a complex area to pursue. Dealers need to partner with a great provider who will help them navigate through selecting an effective OTT solution which will give them the best benefit. Where to start? Use this simple form provided by Premion (thank you) to ask your providers on how they can best help you. (and yes, we are testing ourselves).

FUNNELAI was something unique that I learned about. They have a platform that allows you to sort through digital platforms to find purchase-ready customers. If you are selling new Mercedes-Benz, and someone is online at eg. Reddit forums and post they are looking for one, the platform allows you to start a conversation with them on that respective platform. An organized way to reach across multiple platforms to reach prospective shoppers. I would imagine you would need someone dedicated to engaging with it each day.

FUNNELAI brings a new platform for dealers to consider

The next one I spent a lot of time with was DealerX. Yes, they have been a presence for a long time in our industry, but suffice it to say, what they are offering only continues to grow. I don’t know if I have the words to describe how powerful the platform they have developed has become. I will share this, I am looking to test and I believe my friend Alex is doing the same. Let’s just say that DealerX’s platform gives us unparalleled transparency into how our marketing efforts are really performing, while also (bonus!) helping me target shoppers accurately in this privacy driven market.

With all my focus on texting, I thought it made great sense to go see Steve Roessler’s session “Text Message: Best Practices & Effective Ways to Drive Customer Engagement”. Sometimes it’s the simple things that stand out, and I liked how Steve encouraged us to ask showroom ups and phone-ups “Are you a texter?”, and if they reply “yes”, tell them why we would like to text them, eg. “We would love to send you pictures/video of the car you are interested in”. If our consumers preferred way to communicate today is via text, any effort to accommodate that is consumer-facing.

Recon Velocity helps dealers reduce the time from acquisition to lot-ready

Shish boom bah… Another quick session and back to exhibit hall to meet with folks, and off to eat. Many thanks to Katie Richter with Cuneo Advertising for hosting a wonderful dinner. I was fortunate to sit with Matt Weinberg with Drive Motors and learn more about him. Let me say he has a fascinating background and I learned a lot more about what makes him tick and why he is such a brilliant mind in our industry. I encourage you to find out for yourself, especially if you are trying to learn about digital retailing as Matt excels in that area.

Joining Katie Richter and Matt Weinberg for a wonderful dinner

Do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight! Off to the Digital Dealer party to enjoy some drinks, music, dancing, and good times with friends. This might be the first nightclub I have gone to that closes at 11 pm, but is it a reflection of my age that I was glad? After 3 days of going 110 mph, I was happy to return to my hotel room.

Plenty of space at the Mandalay Bay Convention facilities

Let the sunshine in… Final day, I was up bright and early to have breakfast, and Alex Jefferson and I had scheduled a full demo of DealerX at 8:30 am. Tip – the best time to focus and learn more about the solutions in exhibit hall is usually early in the morning before the chaos begins. After that I met with Podium to review some detailed reports, and then my final session.

Alex Jefferson and Julie Frye relax at the DealerX booth

James Grace is another incredible mind in our industry and he shared how to use Google’s advanced eCommerce capability to identify and eliminate thousands of dollars in wasted paid search. As dealers face compressing margins, and the cost of Google SEM continues to rise, this is an area that all dealers should be looking at closely. James is the founder and CEO of Wizely, Inc. and if you go to his website from a desktop PC, you can get a copy of this deck which is invaluable.

Booths were especially busy on Monday afternoon

Leaving, on a jet plane… You can call me John Denver. You can call me Johnny Knoxville. But you can stop calling me Johnny Red-eye as that overnight direct flight back to Cincinnati throws me out of whack for a couple of days, so I took the afternoon flight back. Did I have any final thoughts?

Premion had some innovative solutions with OTT for dealers

Did anything with Digital Dealer 27 stand out? The greatest strength with this year’s conference for me was exhibit hall, specifically with meeting current partners. We are pursuing some new solutions that we met with as a result of Digital Dealer (minimum of 3 vendors), so yes, we did bring some new business.

Did I mention there was a pet convention next door???

What about dealers? What is the feeling in the current market? Simply put – cautious. There was a lot of uncertainly entering 2019 and continues to be. Dealers are glad to see that the market is doing better than expected, but the general consensus is that we have peaked and will likely decline in the near future. As a result, dealers are cautious to spend and test. They are focused on how partners can help them be more efficient with their operations. And finally, how they can best prepare for the future.

Veronica Dunford – where have you been??? Great to see you!

My final suggestions – could we expand the networking hours during Digital Dealer to start a bit earlier? So many of us have dinner plans that we often have to leave early to get ready, as well as the vendors who are often hosting these events. And my challenge is this – how can dealers be best prepared for an uncertain market in 2020, perhaps a good focus point for Digital Dealer 28? And final challenge is for speakers – are you sharing ACTIONABLE items that dealers can return with?

I am excited to see Digital Dealer 28 in Orlando return to the Rosen Shingle. Call me a fuddy-duddy but I love having everything in one resort, where I can simply walk around the resort to multiple restaurants, bars, pools, and see all of my great industry friends in one place without having to travel everywhere. Maybe I can rent one of those scooters next spring, or just hijack one from the local grocery store.

Farewell from wifey and I after another great Digital Dealer

It was great seeing all of you, much love from Julie and I to the greatest people in automotive 🙂

If you’re looking to the end of the month and are feeling like your lead funnel isn’t as full as you’d like, there’s good news. With the help of a few tools, you can re-engage cold leads and find warm leads you thought were lost.

1. Use Sales Intelligence to Reconsider Lost Leads

Our data study found that 22% of leads marked ‘lost’ were still shopping dealership websites after 7 days without any CRM sales activity or outreach. If you think 1 out of every 5 leads are lost when they’re actually still interested, you’re missing a huge amount of warm leads that you could be engaging!

Right now you have customers who are actively browsing your online inventory, viewing VDP pages, and submitting forms, chats, or calling your dealership—clear indicators that they are interested car buyers. Some are new leads, but a good portion are existing leads that you may not realize are still in the market. Revisit your cold lead lists to see why they were marked ‘lost’ and who may be a good candidate to follow up with. If you have sales intelligence, use it to monitor the website activity of your leads in real-time. A sales optimization tool can alert you to prospects who are back on your website and give you insight into which cold leads are not actually lost.

2. Use Your CRM to Reconnect with Past Customers

Once an appropriate amount of time has passed, sold lead lists in in your CRM can turn into upsell opportunities. Use your CRM to filter by model year purchased, lease end date, etc. to build a prospect list of past customers who may be ready for a new vehicle. Use upcoming 2020 models, sales on 2019 models, vehicle technology, safety advances, and other new information to let sold leads know why you’re reaching out and reopen the conversation.

In addition to purchase data, consider the date of last service. CNW Marketing Research found that customers who regularly serviced their vehicles at a dealership became repeat vehicle buyers at that dealership 86% of the time. Look for loyal customers in your CRM and consider skimming your dealership’s review and social media pages to spot brand advocates who have the potential to become repeat customers.

3. Use Dynamic Email to Re-Engage Leads

Dynamic email can be used to engage cold leads, unsold leads in your CRM, and not-so-lost leads found using sales intelligence. Nearly 75% of adults say that email is their preferred method of communication and 91% of shoppers want to hear from companies they do business with over email. By personalizing email content to each lead, and including specific vehicles and inventory they’ve already shown interest in, you can re-engage each lead type and bring them back into the sales funnel.

Start with dynamic, inventory-specific emails that share new information, such as lower prices, new inventory, similar vehicles they may be interested in, and sales events or incentives to take advantage of. You can create and send these messages manually or let a dynamic email software take care of it for you. Monitor responses and if you don’t get a response, follow up with a personal phone call to reiterate why you thought of them and what new information or incentives you have to offer.

Sales Tools to Keep Leads Engaged

With the majority of car buying research and conversations happening online, salespeople often feel left in the dark. But these tools should shed light on your sales process and provide insights to help you determine which leads are in market and re-engage prospects. To drive real results, make sure you have tools that work together and complement your existing sales strategies.

Foureyes is the intelligent sales platform that empowers salespeople with sales tools that help auto dealerships engage, understand, and close leads faster. Schedule a demo to learn how Tap and 20/20 can help you engage leads and get more sales from your existing pipeline.

Whether they’re looking for new shoes or a new SUV, 87% of shoppers begin product searches on digital channels. As this number increases each year, it’s no wonder everyone seems to be forecasting the day when the process for buying a car moves completely online, merging automotive and ecommerce.

While there will likely come a day when it’s the norm to buy a car online, I think we’re missing the point if we think the only thing the auto industry can learn from ecommerce is how to stock the digital lot.

Auto service centers thrive on Google Search, typically ranking for dozens of local search terms like “oil change near me,” “service center open now,” and “best mechanic in Tallahassee.” However, if you only have one listing for both your service center and your showroom you could be missing out on free traffic from Google. Luckily, Google allows one-location businesses like yours to split listings, so you can optimize for these distinct searches.

Read on to discover how to separate Google My Business listings so you can win the local SEO battle for your sales team and your service center.

Updating Your Google My Business Listing Step-by-Step

Updating your Google My Business listing to include your dealership and service center separately is as simple as starting a new Google My Business listing. Just follow these simple steps.

1. Go to Google My Business

Visit the Google My Business homepage. This acts as your main portal to any and all Google My Business resources.

2. Click “Manage now” or “Sign in” for new users

If you already have a Google My Business account, simply login. If you don’t have an account, you’ll need to create one. To do so, click “Sign In.”

Once you have a dealership listing set up, click “Manage now” to start working on your service center listing.

To prevent duplicate listings of your service center, if a listing already exists, your best bet is to claim it. To do so, just follow the prompts. If someone else has already claimed your service center, you can also report a problem or request access.

5. If your service center isn’t listed, click “add your business”

Google My Business will prompt you to enter relevant information. Just follow the prompts to give your service center its own Google My Business listing.

6. Accurately enter your service center information

As you follow Google My Business’s prompts, be careful to enter the correct information for your service center, including accurate hours and location. Accurate information makes your business look more professional and empowers customers.

7. Pay careful attention to phone number

While it is important to provide accurate information throughout your listing, the phone number is particularly important. A phone number for your service center is one of the main factors that establish it as a separate entity from your dealership, so be sure to double-check it.

8. Verify your business

To verify your business, Google will send a postcard to the address you provided. Once you receive the postcard, input the verification code on the card within 30 days to finish setting up the listing for your service center.

In some cases, Google may also allow you to verify by receiving a pin through text or email. This is definitely the quicker option.

9. Add, edit, and update information

Users can edit your information, so it is important to check back often to make sure all the information on your service center is accurate and up to date.

To make your listing even more appealing, add photos and provide new information so that customers can see what your service center is up to.

Generate More Reviews for Your New Service Center Listing

Once you’ve set up a new listing for your service center, you’ll need to attract some reviews to get the ball rolling. Here are a few easy ways to solicit more reviews.

Ask clients for reviews

Whenever a customer comes in for service, have a friendly employee ask if they’d leave a review on Google. It’s simple, but it can make a huge impact.

Send out review invitations

Podium makes it easy to send out review invitations. Time spent and the clunky submission process are two of the main hindrances that stop your customers from leaving a positive review. Automate and simplify the review process to save time for both your employees and customers.

Make the reviews link easy to find on your website

Sharing the link to your Google My Business listing on your website can provide another option to make it easy for customers to leave reviews.

Include the link in your email signature

Placing a link to your Google My Business listing in your email signature gently reminds customers to leave their review whenever you reply to questions or send out reminders. This gives them yet another opportunity to share their experiences and feedback.

Reply to reviews

Replying to reviews shows customers that you care, which could encourage even more customers to leave reviews. This is especially important for negative reviews, which can often be turned into a positive review with a little attention from your staff.

Maintaining separate Google My Business listings for your dealership and service center can improve your visibility and provide your customers with the accurate, comprehensive information they’re looking for. So what are you waiting for? Split your listing today.

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Editors

Jeff Kershner

I’m the founder of DealerRefresh. I got my start in the dealer business when I was 18. From there I've worked throughout several departments within fixed to variable ops. Whether it’s managing the desk, perfecting sales process or studying online marketing and media trends, I absolutely love this business and the challenges it brings. On top of keeping up with DealerRefresh, I consult with dealerships and key industry businesses. My passion has been and continues to be helping dealers leverage new media to sell and improve customer service.

Alex Snyder

2019 marks Alex's 30th year in the car business. In that time he has had a front-row seat for the rise of the Internet and has been working to bring the online and offline dealership experience closer. Whether you knew him from his life at Checkered Flag or his years with Dealer.com/DealerTrack/Cox Alex has remained an opinionated DealerRefresh contributor who enjoys nothing more than to poke at the unsaid truths in our industry. He also helped found FRIKINtech.